Across Africa, smallholder farmers produce as much as 80 percent of the continent's food. Yet, they remain among its most under-financed producers. For decades, access to affordable, suitable finance has been the missing ingredient for scaling climate-smart, productive farming.
Now, a new model of investment is taking shape, one that blends concessional funds with private capital to share risk and unlock new resources for those who feed the continent. If scaled, it could change the equation for millions of farmers, and turn the tide in Africa's fight to end hunger.
Smallholders face an estimated US170 billion annual financing shortfall, and although they are among those most exposed to the impacts of climate change, they receive less than one percent of global climate finance.